


No Slouching!

by CryTill5AM (BogDing)



Series: Dance Lance [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ballet!lance, lance knows ballet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-02 15:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BogDing/pseuds/CryTill5AM
Summary: Lance gave Keith a dead-eyed look of disbelief, his mouth twitching up into a wry smile, “She’s Russian, Keith. The Russians take their ballet as seriously as Allura takes the forming of Voltron.”





	1. Lance Is Pretty Damn Bendy My Dudes

_“Back straight, arms out, plie, turn, turn, turn, and jump!”  
_

_“Back straight, arms out, plie, turn, turn, turn, and jump!”  
_

_“Back straight, arms out, plie, turn, turn, turn, and jump!”  
_

_“Back straight, arms out, plie, turn, turn, turn, and jump!”_

The old mantra his ballet instructor from the Academy rung through Lance’s mind as he idly watched Shiro and Keith grapple together in the middle of the training room. He was up next, he should be trying to think up a strategy while he watched the others, but Lance found his mind wandering.

_“Back straight, arms out, plie, turn, turn, turn, and jump!”_

He wondered how the old Russian bat was doing. She’d been a pretty nasty lady to her students, highly demanding, with expectations taller than the dance studio that Lance had practically grown up in. But she’d been kind in her own ways, she’d wanted her students to succeed and be happy, even if they decided not to follow through into ballet.

“ _Ballet is a cutthroat world, Lance!_ ” He vaguely remembered her telling him as she held his blistered and bleeding feet within ice water to help reduce the swelling, “ _There is no place for the faint of heart. You must take what you want fiercely, fight for it. Hold it close and claw anyone who might try to challenge your title!_ ”

Lance wondered if any of that fierce possessiveness had soaked into other aspects of his life. Most probably, he thought to himself, huffing in amusement when he remembered his confrontation with Keith over Blue. He shouldn’t have let his inner Prima come out, but hey, he was his teacher’s best student, so he took her advice very seriously.

He remembered her soft frown when he’d told her he planned to enter the Garrison; it was his dream to go into space after all, and he had fairly impressive grades ‘for a dancer’ [according to his high-school teachers].  _“You cannot succeed purely upon your dreams, Lance,”_ She had told him seriously, heavy accent and all,  _“Dreams are good starting points, but it is only through hard work and dedication that you can truly succeed. If you want to go to the stars, work hard, and you shall make it.”_

“Lance! Your turn to spar!” Shiro called out, wiping the sweat from his face as Keith walked away from the center of the room. Lance felt an itch of irritation at the way Keith slouched, flopping into a sprawl next to Lance while he gulped down a packet of water.

The tanned young man stood with a sigh, stretching his arms above his head, idly wondering if he could still comfortably stand on his toes if he so wanted. With lazy elegance, he walked into the sparring circle, aware that he probably wasn’t stretched enough to really do any proper physical training, but ignoring it for the most part. He got himself into a steady stance.

“ _Enter the first position!_ ”

“You ready Lance?” Shiro called out to the Blue paladin, finishing off his own water pack and tossing his sweat-towel to the side.

Lance gave his leader a cocky smirk, eyebrow raised arrogantly, “I was born ready, Shiro!”

_“Move into the second position, pause, move into third!”_

Shiro struck out at Lance, and the younger paladin moved to block him. Their dance had begun. Lance allowed himself to fall into an easy rhythm. Block, block, dodge, counterattack, dodge, block, counterattack, and repeat. It was a pleasant, repetitive spar, but Lance knew Shiro would try to throw him off, and he had to be prepared for that. 

_“Fourth position and then the fifth! Excellent!”_

Lance moved, trying to keep up with Shiro, but he was rapidly losing the edge in their sparring match. It wasn’t that Lance couldn’t keep up, he just couldn’t seem to concentrate on the match. His mind was muggy with memories of a time long gone, so much so that he hadn’t seen the punch Shiro was aiming for his uncovered face. Instinctively, Lance yelped, legs spreading into a slightly painful split as he fell to the floor. Using Shiro’s surprise to his advantage, Lance quickly swung his right leg towards his leader’s legs, knocking the older paladin’s legs out from under him.

Shiro fell to the ground with a grunt, wind knocked out of him. Lance had a moment where he sat, frozen in disbelief, before scrambling over to Shiro, “Shit, fuck, Shiro! You okay dude?” He asked his leader worriedly, hovering over the downed leader.

Shiro’s good-natured laughter rang through the training area as he sat up, mirth flashing over his face as he turned to see Lance. The shocked looks on the younger paladins’ faces sending him into another fit of laughter. He moved to stand, bending down to help Lance up as well.

“I’m fine, just surprised! Didn’t know you were flexible enough to do the splits!” Shiro laughed, pulling the lanky teen up from the floor with a grin.

Lance looked fairly confused, tilting his head to the side, “Uh, yeah? I told you, I’m bendy?”

“It’s honestly not that surprising,” Hunk called over to Shiro, a slight smile on his face, “Lance used to do ballet!” 

Lance grinned proudly and nodded, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Yeah, almost went professional too!” He laughed, seeing the shocked looks on Keith, Shiro and Pidge’s faces, “I just really, really wanted to go to space.”

Keith and Shiro seemed impressed. The garrison wasn’t the easiest flight school to enter, especially if you weren’t already studying in science-based schools. The fact that Lance was from an arts-based study, and still made it into the garrison, despite all the prejudice it might cause for the younger pilot, was highly impressive on its own.

Pidge snapped their fingers, a knowing grin flitting over their faces. “That’s why you’ve got those weird pointy shoes hanging in your room! I was wondering what they were for,” They then huffed with a small frown, “It also explains why I can hear music come from the ballroom late at night sometimes.”

“Yeah, that was me. And they’re called Pointe, not pointy,” Lance corrected easily, catching the water packet Hunk tossed at him. He drank the water like a dying man, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, “I’ve got to keep my stamina up somehow, and my old ballet instructor would  _murder me in my sleep_  if she found out I didn’t keep up with my ballet level.”

Keith frowned, tilting his head to the side curiously, “Why would she do that? She can’t expect you to keep up ballet in the middle of an intergalactic war.”

Lance gave Keith a dead-eyed look of disbelief, his mouth twitching up into a wry smile, “She’s Russian, Keith. The Russians take their ballet as seriously as Allura takes the forming of Voltron,” He finished his water pack, tossing it to the side and stretching lazily again, “Besides it isn’t that difficult. ‘S long as I tell Allura it’s for training, she usually leaves me alone for it.”

Shaking his head, Shiro smiled widely and raised an eyebrow, “Explains why you’ve got such impressive posture too-and why you nag Hunk about his…” He trailed off, a thoughtful look shifting his features, “You know… they do say that dance, especially ballet, helps build up stamina. We could all really use some type of stamina training to help build up our muscles.”

Lance smiled widely, clapping his hands together in excitement, “Oh! I could teach you guys! I mean, I can’t teach you professionally, since none of you seem to have ever done ballet, but I can teach you the basics?”

Shiro nodded, “That sounds like a great idea! What do you all think?”

“Sure, sounds good, I’ve always wanted to try it out!” Hunk said, hesitantly enthusiastic, remembering all the horror stories Lance had shared with his ballet instructor.

Pidge shrugged, “Yeah, that’s fine with me.”

They all turned to Keith, who scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest, “Why not. It’s not like ballet is all that hard to do.”

Lance laughed at that, a sinister curl curving his lips as he smirked, “Oh honey trust me… You’re gonna end up eating those words by half-way through the first session.”


	2. He Wanted To Touch Real Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance paused before snorting indelicately, rubbing his eyes in an effort to hide his amused grin, “Uh, Keith, buddy, if you wanna stand like a werewolf, maybe ballet isn’t for you.”

“Come on guys, it’s just stretching!”

“Shut the fuck up Lance, you’re like, made out of taffy and shit okay!” 

Lance chuckled, resting his head in his hands, elbows on the floor between his split legs. He eyed the rest of the Paladins, all of whom were in various states on spread legs. He had decided to wear something comfortable today, the stretchy material of his leggings allowing him to stretch properly while he led his team through a warm-up and stretches. His tank top hung loosely from his shoulders as he watched the other paladins try to spread their legs as far out as they could go.

Shiro let out a pained grunt as he finally met the floor, legs spread out to the sides in not a split, but still wide enough that it must be uncomfortable. Keith was cursing up a storm and Hunk was groaning, the only one out of the rest of them actually able to perform a perfect split, though it seemed to tax his legs. Pidge was in the same situation as Shiro.

“Keith, seriously dude, if you can’t do a split it’s cool. Just do the same as Shiro and Pidge, you’re drawing out our stretching unnecessarily,” Lance huffed, frowning when Keith was still trying to get down into a split, “Seriously, it’s not good to push your legs too hard, you could really damage them if you’re not careful. We’ll work up to it.”

Keith glared at Lance, before flopping into an easier position with a sigh, grumbling under his breath. Lance allowed the others a brief breather before lifting himself up and shooting them a brilliant smile, “Alright, now we just gotta finish up with some last side stretches and then we can get into the actual ballet part!”

“What?” Shiro let out something that sounded distinctly like a squeak, a panicked look flashing over his face, “You mean all of this was just a warm-up stretch?”

Lance laughed at the incredulous look on Shiro’s face and nodded, turning his torso to grab his right leg. The others groaned and followed into the stretch, Pidge cursing up a storm, “Yeah. You’ve gotta stretch out properly if you wanna do the ballet moves properly, or you could end up pulling a muscle.”

Hunk groaned again, soft born hair sticking messily to his forehead. His headband was drenched in sweat, but there was a look of determination on his face that made Lance beam brightly. Hunk breathed deeply, stretching over to his left side when Lance did the same.

After a few more moments of intense stretching, Keith and Pidge muttering complaints under their breath all the while, Lance stood up and smiled at his team, clapping his hands together, “Alright! We’ll have a quick water break and then I’ll teach you guys some of the basics!” He said cheerfully, the team let out a collective sigh of relief. 

Lance sipped on his water, watching the others gulp down water packets as if they were dying of thirst. Lance hummed softly, looking down at his feet, eyeing his pointe shoes dubiously. There was noticeable wear and tear on the toes and along the bottom of the shoes, bringing the blue paladin to the awareness that he would have to get new ones sometime soon. He frowned lightly, setting his drink aside with a sigh; it was going to be a long time before he’d be able to find proper pointe shoes, considering how far out in space they were. Lance wasn’t sure if there were other alien cultures with dances similar to ballet where he could possibly get new shoes either. 

“So what are you going to teach us, Lance?” Pidge asked curiously, tapping their glasses back up the bridge of their nose, where they’d begun to fall off their face due to the amount of sweat slicking their skin. 

Lance snapped back to the present, pulling a grin to his face as he walked back to the center of the room, facing away from the wall of mirrors-he was lucky that the ballroom seemed to be equipped with full-length mirrors, it made practicing so much easier when he could clearly see what he was doing - and facing his team. The blue paladin narrowed his eyes, back straight as he stared at them for a few moments before clicking his fingers, “I’ll be starting you guys off by teaching you the positions. It’ll take awhile to get them perfect, especially with how bad everyone’s posture is.”

Standing a few feet in front of everyone, Lance assumed the first position, legs and posture straight, feet facing away from one another with his heels together. His arms were bent comfortably in front of him. He stood there for a few moments, smiling at his team, “This is what we refer to as the first position. I want you all to assume this position before I show you the second one.”

Everyone shuffled, trying to copy Lance’s stance as the blue paladin watched with a critical eye. He frowned lightly, clucking his tongue and shaking his head, walking over to them. He headed for Shiro first, “Shiro, your postures great, but your legs have to be placed more together, and your arms need to be more lax - less ninety-degree angle and more 150,” He muttered, tapping his leader’s legs together and moving his feet out into the correct directions. He moved Shiro’s arms lastly, standing back to look at Shiro before nodding in satisfaction, turning to Hunk.

“Looking pretty good, bud!” Lance praised, giving the other man a wide smile, before touching his back lightly so that he was more balanced and less shaky, “You just need to make sure your back is in the right place for proper balance, okay? It’ll help a lot when you have to move into second position…” glancing to the side, Lance frowned, seeing Shiro about to relax out of position and snapped his fingers, “Ah, ah, ah, big guy, keep position! No moving unless I tell you to!”

Shiro snapped back into the first position, fumbling with his legs and arms before assuming it again properly. His cheeks flushed when hearing Pidge’s snicker before they were cut off by Lance tutting. The blue paladin moved behind Pidge and pressed between their shoulder blades, forcing their shoulders back so that they were less hunched over, “There. Less cave man, more naiad,” He muttered, ignoring the look Pidge shot him over their shoulder, already moving over to Keith.

Lance paused before snorting indelicately, rubbing his eyes in an effort to hide his amused grin, “Uh, Keith, buddy, if you wanna stand like a werewolf, maybe ballet isn’t for you.”

“Hey!” Keith snapped, standing a little more straight with a frown. Lance grimaced, coming to stand next to Keith and forcing his back into a straight line, moving his arms at the same time and forcing his legs tightly together.

“You have to stand in the proper position or you’ll fall over when you change position,” Lance explained, bending down to tap Keith’s feet, unaware of how stiff Keith had become as Lance moved the red paladin around like a doll, trying to correct his-frankly awful-posture and straighten out his legs, “You need to tighten up your legs so they’re straight. Have you ever seen a tightrope walker? Imagine you’re standing sideways on a tightrope and this is the only way to make sure you don’t fall to a grisly death.”

He didn’t notice everyone’s disturbed looks as he finished fixing Keith’s first position, moving back in front of them and nodding shortly. Assuming the first position once again, he lifted up into the air to stand on his tiptoes, the pointe shoes making him even taller and keeping his feet straight. Spreading his arms, he stood back on his feet, still straight, but apart now, directed away from one another still, “This is the second position. There are various ways to switch between positions, but I’m gonna ask you guys to copy how I did it because it’s the easiest way.”

“We don’t have pointy shoes though,” Keith huffed, awkwardly lifting up onto the front of his feet before moving into the second position. It was sloppy and awkward, but he at least managed to keep relatively well in the second position, remembering to stand with his back straight, copying Lance’s arms as well.

Lance snorted and shook his head, “Pointe. It’s pointe shoes. And none of you guys are gonna wear them-only professional level ballerinas who have completed their full training can use them without damaging the bones, muscles, and tendons in their legs,” He explained breezily, looking over his teammates and nodding in satisfaction, ignoring all their horrified looks.

Shiro eyed Lance’s pointe shoes and wondered how hard the blue paladin had worked to be able to wear those without doing any sort of harm to his feet. He’d heard stories about how ballerinas often damaged their feet, leading to changing muscles structure and bone density so they could actually use pointe shoes in their craft. He was highly impressed that Lance had managed to get into such a high level with ballet, wondering incredulously why the blue paladin had bothered to go to the garrison when he was obviously very talented in dance.

Lance clapped his hands together, breaking Shiro out of his thoughts. The blue paladin had moved and changed his stance while Shiro wasn’t paying attention, so the black paladin awkwardly shuffled into the next stance as Lance spoke, “This is the third position. Take note of my feet; they probably look similar to how they were when we stood in the first position, but make sure that your dominant leg-right if you’re right-handed and left if the opposite - is the one in front of your other leg. Since I’m right-handed, my right leg is in front of my left.”

Hunk shuffled a little more, making sure to put his left leg in front of his right leg from how he’d been standing in the first position. Pidge wobbled briefly as they stood uncomfortably, knees bent beneath them, only for them to be held together to force them straight by Lance. Keith swayed for a second, rotating his arms in an effort to balance himself and even Shiro looked a little shaky. Lance winced and helped move them around so they were more balanced than before, giving them tips to remember when they moved into the different positions. 

“Now we’ll move into fourth-” Lance said, moving his legs so there was space between his right and left feet, lifting one arm up above his head and the other to be directly off to the side, waiting for the paladins to follow his instructions, “-and then the fifth position!” He called out cheerfully, lifting his other arm to join the other as his legs came back together against one another, holding the position before relaxing out of it, eyeing the other paladins as they struggled to hold it.

“Don’t hold your head up to look at your arms, Keith and Pidge! Keep looking straight forward! Hunk, Shiro, move your feet in more so that there’s a bit of a diamond shape between them-yes, that’s it! Well done!” Lance cheered, walking around the shaking forms of his friends before nodding and standing in front of them again, “Okay, you can move out of the fifth position. Great work guys! How about we try going through the movements again to make them more smooth and get the positions more ingrained in your memory?”

The others groaned but followed Lance’s direction. They must have been practicing for the better part of an hour before Lance was truly and fully satisfied with how fluid each and every one of them moved through the positions. The blue paladin clapped his hands together loudly, a light sheen of sweat on his skin after teaching the others, “Alright, let’s break for fifteen minutes guys, then I’ll show you how to do some plies and pirouettes!”

“Lance, bud,” Hunk panted, placing tired arms on shaking knees as he looked up at his best friend, “I don’t think any of us can really go anymore. I feel muscles burning I didn’t even know I had.”

“Same,” Pidge piped up, flopping to lie down on the ground as they panted heavily, weakly accepting the water pack that Shiro handed them. Keith sat cross-legged next to them, sucking on his own water packet tiredly, eyeing Lance judgingly as he tried to rub his sore back muscles. Shiro walked up to Lance and handed him a water packet, envious of how Lance didn’t even seem to be all that tired while the black paladin felt like he’d been trampled by sixteen bulls. 

Lance hummed, drinking his water packet and eyeing the other paladins quietly. He felt a soft wave of guilt come over him and frowned. Maybe he’d pushed them too hard on their first lesson; they’d never done ballet, unlike Lance, who’d been enrolled in classes as soon as he could walk. He let out a sigh and came to sit with them, elegantly flopping into a cross-legged position in front of them, “Sorry… I guess I pushed you guys a bit too hard, huh?”

Shiro shook his head and smiled softly, dissuading Lance’s guilt slightly as he motioned to the blue paladin, “No, you pushed us just past what we would have done ourselves. It’s just that you’ve got more stamina for this ballet stuff than we do.”

“Yeah,” Keith huffed, finishing his water packet and tossing it off to the side, eyes roving over Lance, impressed with the other’s ability to still keep going when he felt dead tired, as if he’d spent three hours in the training room killing bots than one and a half hours in ballet hell with Lance, “It’s pretty cool. I don’t think my legs have felt this ache in years.”

Lance smiled brightly, laughing at Keith’s statement as he finished his own drink, “Yeah, I remember how that felt. God, it’s been years since I’ve ever pushed my leg muscles like I did when I first started out,” his smile became softer, fonder, “I remember practicing for hours when I first started. I didn’t wanna disappoint my instructor.”

The paladins were silent for a few moments, before Pidge asked curiously, “How old were you when you first started ballet?”

Lance mulled the question over, leaning back to rest on his arms with a shrug, “I dunno. I think I was around three, four years old? Everyone in my family has at least done some ballet as a kid, and I was no exception. I thought I’d hate it when I first started out,” he admitted, grinning widely, “I kicked up a huge fuss, had a tantrum and everything. I almost refused to join in with the class. Man, my instructor was brutal, I remember her telling me: ‘If you are not ready and willing to put in work or effort into this than you can leave. I have no time for little crying babies when I could be training Primeurs.’ I was so pissed that I wanted to prove her wrong.” 

“Why’d you go to the garrison?” Shiro asked, putting word to his thoughts now that they had a moment to relax, “I mean… you look and sound like you’re highly skilled and that you worked hard to get to such a high level, so why did you…?” 

“Why did I give up the glorious life of a prima ballerina to go to a space piloting program?” Lance chuckled, waving off Shiro’s slightly guilty look easily, “It’s cool, not like I haven’t been asked the same thing before…” he hummed, thinking it over for a bit before shrugging again, “I just really, really wanted to go to space. Don’t get me wrong, I love ballet, but I never really wanted to become a world famous ballerina. I wanted to go to space and explore the universe, find life on other planets and communicate with other species…” he trailed off for a bit, a wistful smile crossing his face, “I wanted to touch the stars. The real ones, out here, instead of the stardom that I could have gotten on earth.”

The others were silent, drinking in this information. They understood the feeling themselves, even if they had all gotten to the garrison for other reasons-Pidge, to find their family, Hunk to become an aeronautics engineer, Keith to follow Shiro into space and Shiro, Shiro for the adventure of a lifetime. They’d all had some reason to leave the earth. To hear it put so easily into words by Lance made all of their hearts clench, and they smiled softly, contentment and peace filling the atmosphere between the teammates.

Keith was the first to break the comfortable silence, shooting Lance a smirk that he knew the other would rise up to meet, “Why don’t you show us these high-level ballet skills of yours, huh, Lance?”

Lance stared at Keith for a moment, before standing with a grin, moving away from their little group to turn on some music in the sound deck a few feet away, “Sure thing, mullet brain. Maybe you could learn a thing or two.”


End file.
